TAINAN, Taiwan – The 12U National Team will look to stay unbeaten at the VI World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) U-12 Baseball World Cup against the Dominican Republic on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. local time (Saturday at 10:30 p.m. ET). The game will be streamed live on Gametime OTT (login required) and live stats will be provided here.
Team USA is coming off a 21-6 win over Japan in the second game of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup on Friday. The U.S. scored 14 runs in the sixth inning to pull away from Japan, its second 14-run inning of the tournament.
Jonah Saken is batting a perfect 1.000 (5-for-5) for the U.S. so far in the tournament after going 4-for-4 in Saturday’s win. Saken has hit two doubles and scored five runs for the stars and stripes through two games.
The U.S. offense has also been paced by Jordan Leon, who has driven in a tournament-most seven runs in just six at-bats. Leon had five RBIs in Friday’s 14-run first inning and drove in two more on Saturday.
Colin Anderson and Anthony Frausto have each launched a grand slam for Team USA, with Anderson’s coming in Saturday’s win and Frausto’s against Czech Republic on Friday. The U.S. has hit ten homers in the first two games of the event.
The U.S. pitching staff owns a 3.00 ERA in 10 innings pitched, striking out 13 batters. Cristian Matos, Dylan Mercado, and Jimmy Stout III have all turned in scoreless performances on the mound.
Sunday’s game will be the first all-time matchup between Team USA and the Dominican Republic. It will be the first game of the VI WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup for the Dominican Republic, which is making its tournament debut.
The U.S., which owns a world-best three world titles at the U-12 level, won all three of its championships in three consecutive events (2013, 2015, 2017). Team USA went 6-2 in the tournament in 2019 but did not earn a medal for the only time in program history.
The 2022 U.S. roster comprises players who were selected from two USA Baseball identification events. Fourteen players on the roster participated in the 2022 Futures Invitational in June and four athletes played in the 2021 National Team Identification Series (NTIS) Champions Cup last summer. In addition, the roster comprises players from nine different states. California leads all states with six representatives, while Texas follows with five players.
The stars and stripes are led by skipper RJ Farrell in 2022, who returns to the post for the second consecutive season. Farrell led the U.S. to an unbeaten record in a three-game exhibition slate in 2021, outscoring opponents 55-3. The manager has a plethora of experience on 12U National Team coaching staffs, spending three seasons as an assistant coach. In that role, he helped lead Team USA to gold medals at the 2017 WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup and the 2018 COPABE U-12 Pan American Championships.
Farrell will be joined on staff by pitching coach Seth Kenny and assistant coaches Troy Gerlach and Tanner Vesely. Kenny will reprise his role as pitching coach in 2022 after making his national team coaching debut a summer ago, when his pitching staff posted a 1.29 ERA and struck out 33 batters in 21 innings pitched. Gerlach assumes the role of assistant coach on the 2022 staff, bringing with him a gold medal from the 2018 WBSC U-15 Baseball World Cup, where he was an assistant coach. Also serving as an assistant is four-time gold medalist Vesely for the second consecutive year. Vesely, who has been a member of six national team staffs, won the 2015 WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup as manager and has been an assistant on three other gold-medal winning squads.
The U.S. is in Group B - which includes Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Japan, and Korea - for the pool play portion of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup. Three nations from the group will emerge to the Super Round, where they will be joined by the three advancing teams from Group A (Chinese Taipei, Italy, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, and Venezuela).
To follow along with all the action at the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup, be sure to follow @USABaseball12U on Twitter and @USABaseball on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.
